Step 6: Innovation and utilization of research

Innovation and utilization vary in forms and are not limited to traditional commercialization and start-ups, but can just as well include licensing or other non-commercial routes.

How Grants and Innovation Office defines innovation and utilization:

An innovation is a new way of creating value - where the value can be social, human, environmental, financial or an experience. Often, innovation provides several of these values simultaneously.

Utilization is a valuable opportunity to increase the impact of your research and strengthen both your and your research environment's competitiveness with many research funders.

Our innovation support consists of three main parts:

1. Identification and early development of ideas
2. Verification of innovative ideas and value proposition
3. The road ahead

In practice, with the support of Grants and Innovation Office, you will work through/iterate these main parts before an innovative idea has been implemented in the outside world.

In addition to this, you can also get help with research applications when it comes to:

• finding partners outside the academy
• describing how a project should handle any results that can be utilized 
• identifying which intellectual assets you include in a new project

1. Identification and early development of ideas

An idea doesn't have to be fully formed for you to get help. You can always contact Grants and Innovation Office for an initial discussion and a sounding board, to get help with figuring out the right to use the idea and for an assessment of its uniqueness. You can also get support to take forward an initial value offering and identify the important questions in order to further develop it. The result will give you an initial simple strategy and action plan. To supplement your network, we can also assist you with contacts with potential users or customers in business, the public sector and non-profit organizations.

In this section we use, among other things, proven methods such as:

• IAI ( Intellectual Asset Inventory ) from Chalmers University of Technology and University of Gothenburg
• NABC (Value Offer) and VCF ( Value Creation Forums) from the Stanford Research Institute
• KTH IRL (Innovation Readiness Levels ) of the Kungliga Technical Högskolan
• BMC (Business Model Canvas )

2. Verification of innovative ideas and value proposition

An effective verification process enables you to see if an innovative idea is worth pursuing further, and how this can be done - both from your own and an external perspective. The method is similar to that used in scientific research, but here it is not scientific hypotheses that are verified but hypotheses about the value proposition. It is equally valuable for you to know at an early stage if an idea is not going to work.  

This process provides access to the verification instruments, funding and wider network available through the Innovation Office Fyrklövern, the Joint Innovation Office of Karlstad University, together with Linnaeus University, Mid Sweden University and Örebro University.

You can submit an application for VFT verification funding at any time to Innovation Office Fyrklövern, in consultation with GIO. In short, your application should consist of your value proposition and details of what you specifically want to verify. Decisions on applications are made every week. The total amount that can be allocated for your innovative idea is max. SEK 300,000, and it always happens in stages where the result of one verification activity is the basis for the next .

In addition to VFT, there is the opportunity to receive continued funding.

Examples of what can be verified are:

Need - is there a real and quantifiable need?

Scalability - can you go from a few to many users with durability?

Application – does it work in a business outside the lab?

Protection - can the value offer be protected by intellectual property protection?

Regulatory – does it comply with relevant laws and regulations?

Profitability - can income / the financing model cover costs over time?

Market - is there a market and, if so, how big is it?

Team – are there the skills, knowledge and experience needed to move forward?

Once your innovative idea has been verified, the risks have been reduced and the value offer strengthened. You have also got a clearer picture of the way forward for your idea.

3. The road ahead

There are many paths that an innovative idea can take. Depending on the outcome of the verification process, it may be:

• Forming a separate organization outside the academy, perhaps a company, an association or a public activity.
• Remaining in academia, in the form of innovative new education or becoming the basis for new research.
• Making the idea available to existing organizations through regulated use under licence. This can be either with or without fees.

At this stage you can benefit greatly from the developed channels and collaborations that Grants and Innovation Office has with:

• Innovation Park (neighbouring Karlstad University).
• STING BioEconomy - a business incubator for innovation companies in bioeconomy.
• Other business incubators in Sweden and abroad with whom we have established contacts.
• Kickstart Network Värmland - a meeting place where all innovation-supporting actors together innovation support companies (or organizations).
• Vinnova – the Swedish Innovation Authority.

Through Karlstad University 's subsidiaries, Karlstad University's Innovation AB and Karlstad University Uppdrags AB, there are various opportunities for solutions that mean that you do not need to create companies yourself in order for your idea to spread further.